Hawaii Pension Taxes

[GreenDot954]

Hello,

I have a State of Alaska Defined Benefits teacher pension. As part of my employment I had to pay into this pension plan.

Is the income I receive from this plan taxable in Hawaii?

I've looked over the Hawaii tax code and can't quite understand if the income would be subject to Hawaiian taxes or not. If it isn't could you also point me to the code that states this?

Sincerely.

[rjs]

Pension income is subject to tax by the state that you live in when you receive the income. It doesn't matter what state the pension is from. So if you now live in Hawaii then, yes, your pension income is taxed by Hawaii.

[GreenDot954]

Thank you for your reply.

I suspect my questions were poorly framed.

I included the fact that the pension is from Alaska only because I don't know if Hawaii treats non-Hawaiian state pensions differently than Hawaiian state pensions.

But, the core of question is how Hawaii taxes pensions. From my reading it seems that Hawaii, in general, does not tax pensions. However, Hawaii treats pensions that are solely employer financed versus pensions where the employee also contributes differently.

Essentially, it seems that if an employee contributes to pension then at least a portion of the proceeds from the pension are taxable. But, if the pension is solely funded by the employer then the pension is 100% non-taxable.

The exception to this MIGHT be if the employee as no choice and is forced as a condition of employment to contribute to the pension. In this case 100% of the pension is not taxable. This is what I am trying to confirm.

Sincerely.